Married women

“ Now let us turn to the other side of the problem—the more normal relations of men and women who are lovers, who are husbands and wives. May I again recapitulate what appears to be the history of many married people, even in 1921. ”

“ HUMILIATIONS. To the glory of women, let it be said, they care for their husbands even when their husbands care no more for them, not only because there are more ties, socially speaking, between a married woman and a man, than between the man and the wife; but also because woman has more delicacy and honor than man, the chief conjugal question apart, as a matter of course.
Axiom.—In a husband, there is only a man; in a married woman, there is a man, a father, a mother and a woman. ”

“ I am writing of the English-speaking races of to-day, and though we also have among us that dwarfed and sterilized type of woman, she forms in our community a dwindling minority. The majority of our best women enter marriage and motherhood, or else long for a marriage more beautiful than the warped mockery of it that is offered them. ”

“ First Offer.—The appearance and outgiving of many wives denote that they have accepted the first offer; the appearance and outgiving of many old maids that they have declined repeated offers. It is undeniable, that wives, in the mass, have no more charm than old maids have, in the mass. But, as the majority of women are married, they are no more criticised nor commented on, in the bulk, than the whole sex are. ”

“ Keep some wood for the winter fire, and remember what is expected of a married woman. Her husband must be able to count upon her in his home; it is she to whom he must entrust the key of his heart; his honour, his household, his welfare are in the hands of his wife. ”

“ The married women appear to be absolutely loyal, and certainly I never saw or heard a married woman sneer at her husband or speak ill of him except behind his back. Some are very beautiful, others are merely pretty, a few are as plump as partridges, and because they are natural, I did not see a single ugly woman amongst them. ”

“ And they might in that case be right if the reasons were purely numerical: that is, if every woman were willing to take a husband if one could be found for her, and every man willing to take a wife on the same terms; also, please remember, if widows would remain celibate to give the unmarried women a chance. ”

“ I have heard from women, whose marriages are looked upon by all as the happiest possible expressions of human felicity, the details of secret pain of which they have allowed their husbands no inkling. ”

“ The greater part of what women write about women is mere sycophancy to men. In the case of married women, much of it seems only intended to increase their chance of a husband. Many, both married and unmarried, overstep the mark, and inculcate a servility beyond what is desired or relished by any man, except the very vulgarest. ”

“ Were it possible, they would either not have married, or at least have waited until, with the knowledge of man which they should possess—but which, unfortunately, nowadays comes to them only with marriage—they could select for themselves, with their eyes open, a partner suited to them in every respect. As it is, what does one see? Women, especially in the higher grades of society, marry only to escape in many instances the prim restraints of home. ”

“ It used to be the custom for married women to have their teeth blackened, to prevent their receiving admiration from men other than their husbands; but this is dying out, and you now only see old married women in country districts following this obsolete fashion. ”

“ Then there is another cause for the dulling of a wife's bright charm. It is indeed a serious matter, as Jean Finot says, "that, under present conditions, the mistress keeps certain liberties which are denied to married women." ”

“ But let us make it. And then let us look at this compact picture of the extent to which being married is an occupation for American women:
In the United States, in the year 1900, among women twenty years of age and over, the married women numbered 13,400,000. The unmarried women and the widows together numbered 6,900,000. For every two women married there was one woman either single or widowed.
THESE CHILDREN IN THE FRANCIS PARKER SCHOOL IN CHICAGO ARE GETTING AN EARLY START IN THEIR TRAINING FOR THEIR FUTURE WORK IN THEIR HOMES.
Photograph by Burke & Atwell, Chicago. ”

“ Millions of women are married in that way every year, madam. Look at India, at China, at Turkey, and at many modern homes, even in England and America 1 It would seem to be the exception and not the rule where women get the husbands of their choice. ”

“ If a happy home were the universal destiny of women, our problem would be greatly simplified; but this is far from being the case. Not more than one-half of all women over fifteen are married at any one moment. From the ages of twenty to thirty-five, one-half are married ”

“ “But I’m married, and believe me, in getting to know thoroughly one’s wife, if one loves her, as someone has said, one gets to know all women better than if one knew thousands of them.” ”

“ No, Jean. Marriage under right conditions is the world’s greatest blessing. All enlightened men and women prefer to live in pairs, and make each other and their children as happy as possible. I admit that I made a big mistake when I married; but your mother didn’t, because your father is one of God’s noblemen. The fault isn’t in marriage, but in the couple, one or both of whom make the trouble, when there is trouble. But the conditions between husbands and wives are not equal. Law and usage make the husband and wife one, and the husband that one. ”

“ Let us not forget, however, in our sympathy for the superfluous women, that their children must have fathers as well as mothers. Who are the fathers to be? All monogamists and married women will reply hastily: either bachelors or widowers ”

“ This ancient weakness of our sex must be conquered, and is being conquered by the modern woman.
While modern marriage is tending to give ever more and more freedom to each of the partners, there is at the same time a unity of work and interest growing up which brings them together on a higher plane than the purely domestic one which was so confining to the women and so dull to the men. ”

“ A widow of any considerable rank seldom marries again. Those of high station esteem it a sacred duty to show this mark of veneration for the memory of a husband, even if they have been but a few days married, or even if the marriage contract had been settled at the time of his death. ”

“ Such women, yearning daily for the tender comradeship and nearness of their husbands, find, in addition, at particular times, an accession of longing for the close physical union of the final sex-act. ”

“ It is also true that (partly due to the inhibiting influences of our customs, traditions and social code) women may marry before it wakes, and may remain long after marriage entirely unconscious that it exists subdued within them. For innumerable women, too, the husband's regular habits of intercourse, claiming her both when she would naturally enjoy union and when it is to some degree repugnant to her, have tended to flatten out the billowing curves of the line of her natural desire. ”

“ Every thoughtful woman likes to be at work on her husband's soul. Young ladies enjoy the prospect before they are married, and no novel is so thoroughly popular among them as one in which beauty is the instrument in the hands of Providence for the conversion of unbelief. ”

“ Marriage-bed Resolutions.—Most men of the educated classes enter the marriage-bed with the consciousness of leaving behind them a whole army of prostitutes or seduced women, in whose arms they cooled their passions and spent the vigor of their youth. But with such a past the married man does not at the same time leave behind him its influence on his inclinations. The habit of having a feminine being at his disposal for every rising appetite, and the desire for change inordinately indulged for years, generally make themselves felt again as soon as the honeymoon is over. ”

“ I would undoubtedly open to single women every legitimate avenue to an honorable self-support, and thus keep them from many of the pitfalls which so closely environ them, and by causing for the married woman more or greater occasion to respect her husband, I would redouble for him her affection. ”

“ In short, the overcoming of her personal modesty which is generally looked on as an essential result in marriage where the woman becomes wholly the man's, has generated among our women a tradition that before their husbands they can perform any and all of the details of personal and domestic duties. ”

“ Very often there is conscientious difference of opinion between married people, on the highest points of duty. Is there any reality in the marriage union where this takes place? Yet it is not uncommon anywhere, when the woman has any earnestness of character ”

“ One, who was almost a boy, complained to an Englishman, with great simplicity, that he had married a toothless old woman, while his poor cousin had a pretty young wife, with whom he could play all the day long. ”

“ The caprices of society have divided the two millions of marriageable women into three main classes, namely: those who remain spinsters for reasons which we have defined; those whose virtue does not reckon in the obtaining of husbands, and the million of women lawfully married, with whom we have to deal.
You see then, by the exact sifting out of the feminine population, that there exists in France a little flock of barely a million white lambs, a privileged fold into which every wolf is anxious to enter. ”

“ My dear father, if we men married the women we deserved, we should have a very bad time of it. ”

“ Girls are often married at ten years of age, and bachelors are very uncommon. Except in the large towns, and among the opulent classes, matches are rarely made from interested motives, and divorces scarcely ever occur. ”

“ If we women were particular about men's characters, we should never get married at all, Mr Mangan. ”

“ Let men, above all, ask themselves with regard to women—to wives—this question—and answer it in a manly, honest manner, whether it is condemnatory of their own "line of conduct" or the contrary: Should I be willing to endure what I expect my wife to bear, were I a woman and a wife? ”

“ We love them and their children, so we are at their mercy. We have always tried to fulfil their plans for us, to be the kind of women who would please them. And see what has pleased them—see what they've praised in us! I don't mean working-women, but women whose husbands can afford to have the kind of wife they like. ”

“ Do you know many wives, my dear Rachel, who respect and admire their husbands? And yet they and their husbands get on very well. How many brides go to the altar with hearts that would bear inspection by the men who take them there? And yet it doesn't end unhappily—somehow or other the nuptial establishment jogs on. The truth is, that women try marriage as a Refuge, far more numerously than they are willing to admit; and, what is more, they find that marriage has justified their confidence in it. ”

“ Yet, because this order of wives has existed, and been honoured and adored by our forefathers, and been exactly what the spirit and circumstances of the times required, we all agree in regarding the worthy mediæval wife as a model for all ages. There were ladies then, who were no more capable of administering the affairs of a domain than many a modern wife is of keeping her husband’s house. There were weak and spoiled women, who regularly aggravated all misfortunes by their grief and lamentations. ”

“ With a great deal of shyness and simpering and half-suppressed grinning, and real or affected modesty on the part of the women, and equal mirth and awkward self-consciousness on that of the aspirant bridegrooms, the candidates for matrimony—or at least such of them as were present, one couple and a 'boy' being away—were got together and ranged in a row before us, hoes in hand, where they stood, to their own and the boisterous delight of their colaborers. ”

“ Has he any call to be a husband, who kisses his wife only on Saturday night, when he winds up the clock and pays the grocer, and who never notices, day by day, the neat dress, and shining bands of hair arranged to please his stupid milk-and-water-ship?
TO THE LADIES.
A CALL TO BE A WIFE. Has that woman a call to be a wife, who thinks more of her silk dress than of her children, and visits her nursery no oftener than once a day?
Has that woman a call to be a wife, who cries for a cashmere shawl when her husband’s notes are being protested? ”

“ His kind-hearted old mother, who had been at work in the kitchen and had overheard our conversation, came to the doorway and placed her arms lovingly around our broad shoulders.
"Lots of time yet to think about getting married. And, let me whisper something into your ears. It's an old woman's advice, and it's good:—when you do think of marrying, be sure you get a wife with a pleasant face and a good figure; a wife that other wives' men will turn round and admire; for, you know, you can never foretell what kind of temper a woman has until you have lived with her. ”

“ Yea the great Bowl is rins'd, and about goes a brimmer to the good prosperity of the young couple. Well, thinks the young woman, what a vast difference there is between being a married woman & a maid! How every one receives & treats you! What respect and honour every one shews you! How you go daily in all your gallantry taking pleasure! And how every where you are fawn'd upon, imbrac'd and kist, receiving all manner of friendship! It is no wonder that all womankind are so desirous of marriage, and no sooner lose their first husbands, but they think immediately how to get a second? ”